1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a refuse-treating unit. The kind of refuse treated in accordance with the present invention may be hospital, industrial and municipal wastes.
2. Prior Art
It is known that presently the refuse collection, particularly in hospitals, first aid stations, medical laboratories and similar facilities is generally accomplished by the use of plastics bags or cardboard containers inside which plastics envelopes are arranged.
From studies carried out in Europe it appears that once said bags have been filled, they are partly conveyed to refuse dumps or incinerators where they are burnt, and partly collected by specialized firms or have an unknown destination. Due to the spreading of some types of infections and also to the psychosis related thereto above all in recent years, in hospitals there has been a tendency of absorbing all refuse in the particular category of special refuse for which the sterilization in suitable furnaces is provided before they are destined for disposal.
The disposal techniques applied to hospital refuse have however some limits and drawbacks.
The first drawback resides in the high costs necessary for the above operations, which cost is due both to the important volume of matter to be transported and to the fact of considering each hospital refuse as a special one.
A second drawback to be taken in still greater account than the former is represented by the lack of safety when wastes are transported at the inside and outside of the units where they are produced because the containers for example do not give the complete certitude that needles or infect biological products do not come out.
In addition, even during the sterilization operations, where they are carried out, some drawbacks may sometimes occur such as for example the container breakage inside the furnaces, which makes the removal of the sterilized refuse rather difficult.
Finally it is to be pointed out that the refuse incineration when plastic materials are contained in the refuse matter--said plastic materials being increasingly more used in hospitals and in the different medical units--involves the generation and the discharge to the surrounding atmosphere of harmful substances such as for example dioxine.